Nicholas Johnson (NJ): Good morning. This is Nicholas Johnson.  I just tuned a few minutes ago.  I don't know whether you’ve said anything about Ralph Nader . . .

AW: Yes, he's here tonight.

NJ: Have you been talking about it?

AW: We've been plugging it.

NJ: All right. Well, it's going to be a very exciting evening, 6:30 at the Iowa Memorial Union.  He comes through here about every three or four years so this is a great chance to hear the man the Democrats are afraid to let you listen to.

AW: Nick, you know him personally.

NJ: Yes, I do.  And this fellow is the genuine article.  If you're looking for somebody to still be idealistic about in politics, this is your man.

His view is that we've reached the point, finally, when we need to act. I think he is right. I think four to eight years from now, we're either going to have a major third party or a major restructuring of the two major parties over this corporate corruption that enables big business to go in and buy their tax breaks and defense contracts.

For every million dollars they give in soft money, they get at least a billion back from us, as taxpayers, in the form of tax breaks -- or higher prices in the form of price supports or anti-trust violations that drive up prices.  So we're paying for these campaigns, but we're paying it in the form of higher pharmaceutical prices, higher gasoline prices, and the taxes we have to pay.

Some of these corporations are so bad that they've actually got tax laws written where they not only owe no taxes the government actually gives them money at the end of the year.  Now there aren't many of us who get that.

At some point you have to say, “Enough already! Enough already!”

And I'm saying that as somebody who's had three presidential appointments from Democratic presidents. I've run for Congress and U.S. Senate from Iowa as a Democrat.  I've worked at every level from precinct captain to a Democratic National Committee project.

So it’s not easy for me to support another party at the national level.

I'm not talking local candidates.  We have some wonderful local Democrats running for office.  I'm talking about the national level.

We’ve turned this thing into a bazaar where you come in and you just buy the legislation that you want.

AW: Thank you very much, Prof. Johnson.

NJ: 6:30 tonight, IMU.

Steve Bridges (SB): Nick, you've been involved in the FCC, as Chairman of the FCC.

NJ: But I don't regulate you guys anymore. That's how come you're so frightfully entertaining in the morning. We no longer have any standards whatsoever in broadcasting.

AW: Thank God for that.

NJ: Otherwise, you'd have been off the air a long time ago.

SB: What do you think of the consolidation not only of radio, I mean that’s your expertise, but of banking and the other industries?

NJ: Well you know anytime a couple of big corporate chieftains who are pulling down millions of dollars of year go to Washington we’re in trouble. We now have the greatest spread between the rich and the poor of any one of the largest industrialized nations. The greatest spread between the executives and the workers of any nation in the world. It was once sort of 10-to-1, then 40-to-1, then 100-to-1 and it’s now at 400-to-1. They earn that much more than the workers who are actually doing the work.

Anytime these rich rascals come into Washington D.C. and say, “We want to merge because we are going to better serve the consumer,” let me tell you I reach for my wallet. I want to make sure they haven't picked it right out of pocket. Those rascals are not interested in helping you and me.

The last thing on earth they want is free private enterprise competition.  And I’ve spent enough time in Washington watching it work to know that when they come to Washington they want the government to get on their backs. They want to drive their competitors out of business. They want price supports. They want protection from the anti-trust laws so they can engage in monopoly and anti-competitive practices.  That is what this is about.

The parties are now incapable of reforming themselves.  They are so dependent on this money.  There is really nothing they can do.

Now you take Al Gore. He says, “If you elect me, the first legislation I'm going to send up to Congress is going to be campaign finance reform.”  Well, why the heck didn't he do anything about it during the last eight years?

Why haven't we been able to do anything about it for the last 30 years?  I was on the national board of Common Cause.  We've been fighting this thing since 1970.  So I think after 30 years of being frustrated and failing, it's not unreasonable to say, “OK, I’ve had it.”

We are in a new century, for goodness sake. It’s time that we finally do something about this corporate corruption of democracy.

And I would remind our listeners that Iowa took the lead on this a couple times in past history.

One was after the Civil War. The Democrats were disaffected. They were upset with the fact that big money, big business, had taken over the Democratic party and the party was not helping the small farmers.

And it was those disaffected Democrats who started the Populist party and the Agrarian movement. That is what led to regulation of banking and railroads, and women's right to vote, and minimum wages and maximum hours, and child labor restrictions.

The two big parties wouldn't do that.  Only when they are threatened by a growing third party movement.

Then in 1912 there were Republicans who were upset with big money, big business taking over their party.  They split off and they started the Progressive Party and out of that we got more positive social legislation for the people.

The two major parties will always fight that.  They always have, they are doing it now.  It's worse and worse.  It's much worse now then it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago.  It gets progressively worse. And of course it’s going to.

They are raising hundreds of millions of dollars.  Somebody said George Bush has received something like 90 percent of his first $100 million dollars from 700 individuals.  Now what is he going to do when they show up at the White House to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom?  Spit in their eye?  Will he tell them, “Oh, we really appreciate those millions of dollars you raised but, gee, we can't do anything for you now.”  Of course not!

SB: The way that the banking industry, banks are buying up the smaller banks, they are not running them, they are closing them down.  We just got an offer from Clear Channel Communications which owns 90 percent of the radio stations here and they will pay us to turn this off. You know it used to be that we had to serve the public.  Now they can pay us to turn it off.

NJ: Is that competition?  Heck no!  Why do they do it? They want to drive up advertising rates.

We have a bank in Iowa City that keeps changing it's name so fast they put up their signs with velcro now. That is supposed to give me better service?  That's supposed to let me borrow money at lower interest rates?  That's supposed to charge me less for my ATM fees?  Heck, no.  It's designed to drive up those prices and further rip off the consumers and create an even greater spread between the executives of those banks and the people who work in those banks.  After they've laid off the tellers with the ATMs to save them money and then they charge us for using the ATMs.
 
AW: You know, Professor Nick, I bank at that bank and I have never written a check out of the current bank.
 
NJ: What, have you run out of money?  We have to increase your pay.

AW: Before I get my checks, it changes it name.

NJ: Oh, that's right. I ran into that, and then they would throw checks back at me when I had plenty of money in my account.

SB: Don't tell me about that.

AW: I just encountered that too.

SB: I have gone through a nightmare of that.  I've had so many lines of credit and I have to call every time to get them to kick it in.  I promised Bob that I wouldn't leave, but I am telling you it's not only this bank, it is all of this consolidation.

NJ: That's right.  It's their control.

That’s one of the things that Ralph Nader, and I hope he’ll get into tonight -- 6:30, Iowa Memorial Union -- is how in fact the regulatory commissions --  and that has been my experience in Washington, with the regulatory commissions -- actually have been worse under Clinton and Gore than they were under Reagan and Bush.

The point is that it doesn't really make any difference. There are some issues on which there is a difference between Bush and Gore -- or Bore and Gush, as some people call them.  On the debate they both dressed identically, same color suit, same color shirt, same color tie.  At what point are the American people going to catch the message there?

The point is that with regard to the things that affect business -- who gets appointed to the regulatory commissions; are they going to come out of business or are they going to come out of the public interest movement -- there is no meaningful difference between Clinton-Gore and Reagan-Bush.

In terms of international trade, Bush and Gore agree that we ought to send American jobs overseas.  That child labor is just really nifty.  That it doesn't make any difference if you pay these people 20 cents an hour and work them 60 hours a week in these other countries.

You go right down the list of things that affect the wealthy and things that affect big business.  They're in virtual agreement on those issues.

They're in agreement on the death penalty.

They are both in agreement on increasing defense spending.  You know, we have more in the way of defense than the next 25 nations combined.  They want to spend more on it?

There is an organization in Washington, the Center for Defense Information, that is made up of former generals and admirals.  They contend that we would have a stronger defense if we were spending one-third less on it.  Now why are Gore and Bush both advocating an increase in defense spending?  Well, go back and look at the 1000-to-1-return business.  Those corporations give a million bucks and they get a billion-dollar defense contract. The parties are dependent upon that money.

And then the corporate media gets involved in it.  Do you realize that an announcement of Ralph Nader's appearance at the Union tonight at 6:30 is not being carried on the Associated Press?

The Democrats are so panicked at the prospect of people hearing the truth from Ralph Nader that they are sending in speakers before him and after him.  Well, you know, I think Martin Sheen is a wonderful guy but he ain't president, he just plays one on TV, folks. This is not a political science student.

Ralph Nader has passed more legislation -- researched, written and gotten it enacted  -- in the 1970's than virtually any United States senator.  He has done more research and written more books than virtually any University of Iowa professor.  He’s given away more money than any philanthropist that I know in terms of his funding of other people's organizations with the money earned from his books and his lectures.

I mean this guy comes as close to a genuine Twentieth Century American hero as anybody you’re ever likely to meet. And you can meet him tonight at the Iowa Memorial Union. 6:30.  Be there.

AW: All right we will see you there tonight.

NJ: Okay.

AW: Call back anytime.

NJ: Anytime what?

AW: Anytime, you can come on this show anytime.

NJ: Well, I thank you very much for that.

AW: Thank you.

NJ: Talk to you later. Bye.